Document 52011DC0882

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS Open dataAn engine for innovation, growth and transparent governance

52011DC0882

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS Open dataAn engine for innovation, growth and transparent governance /* COM/2011/0882 final */

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO
THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL
COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS

Open data
An engine for innovation, growth and transparent governance

1.
Introduction

The central aim of the EU 2020 strategy is
to put Europe’s economies onto a high and sustainable growth path. To this end,
Europe will have to strengthen its innovative potential and use its resources
in the best possible way.

One of these resources is public data[1] — all the information that
public bodies in the European Union produce, collect or pay for. Examples are
geographical information, statistics, weather data, data from publicly funded
research projects, and digitised books from libraries. This information has a
significant — currently untapped — potential for re-use in new products and
services and for efficiency gains in administrations. Overall economic gains
from opening up this resource could amount to € 40 billion a year in the
EU. Opening up public data will also foster the participation of citizens in
political and social life and contribute to policy areas such as the
environment.

This Communication
presents a package of measures to overcome existing
barriers and fragmentation across the EU, as part of the Digital Agenda for
Europe. It consists of three strands that reinforce each other:

·
Adapting the legal framework for data re-use. A
proposal for a revised Directive on the re-use of public sector information and
a revised Commission Decision on the re-use of its own information are adopted
together with this Communication,

·
Mobilising financing instruments in support of
open data, and deployment actions such as the creation of European
data-portals,

·
Facilitating coordination and experience sharing
across the Member States.

The actions focus on areas where the
functioning of the internal market is at stake and where common standards and
approaches will lead to new and better services and information products for
the European consumer. They build on and do not affect the national regimes for
access to information.

2.
Open data, why does it matter for Europe?
2.1.
Untapped business and economic opportunities

The 2009 Digital Britain Report described data
as ‘an innovation currency’ and ‘the lifeblood of the knowledge
economy’[2].
A large part of this innovation currency is produced, collected or paid for by
governments across the EU. It is an essential raw material for a wide range of
new information products and services that build on new possibilities to
analyse and visualise data from different sources.

These products range from decision support systems for businesses,
location-based services and car navigation systems to weather forecasts and
other ‘apps’ for our smartphones.

The market size and growth of the
geographic information sector shows the potential of public data as an engine
for job creation. The German market for geo-information in 2007 was estimated
at € 1.4 billion, a 50 % increase since 2000[3]. In the Netherlands, the
geo-sector accounted for 15 000 full time employees in 2008. Other areas
such as meteorological data, legal information and business information also form
the basis of steadily growing markets.

A recent study estimates the total market for
public sector information in 2008 at € 28 billion across the EU[4]. The same study indicates that
the overall economic gains from further opening up public sector information by
allowing easy access are around € 40 billion a year for the EU27. The total
direct and indirect economic gains from PSI applications and use across the
whole EU27 economy would be in the order of € 140 billion annually.

2.2.
Addressing societal challenges

Intelligent processing of data is essential
for addressing societal challenges. Data can for example be used to enhance the
sustainability of national health care systems. The 2011 McKinsey report
estimated that effective use of data could generate $ 300 billion in value
per year[5].

Progress in genomics, drug discoveries and the diagnosis and
treatment of serious diseases such as cancer or heart failure increasingly
depend on sophisticated data capturing and analysis techniques.

Data management is also essential for
tackling environmental challenges. Examples are the processing of energy
consumption patterns to improve energy efficiency or of pollution data in
traffic management. Informed policy decisions in the areas of transport, land
use and climate change depend increasingly on analysis of the available data.

2.3.
Accelerating scientific progress

Scientific activities are increasingly undertaken through global
collaboration on the internet, using very large data collections, huge
computing resources and high-performance visualisation. e-science
(research enabled by e-infrastructure/ICT) is essential for meeting the
challenges of the 21st century in scientific discovery and learning. The data
used come from simulations, digital instruments, sensor nets, and
observatories.

The 2010 report ‘Riding the Wave’[6] underlined the crucial role of
data for science and its potential to change the very nature of scientific
process.

Wide access to scientific data will for example help researchers in
different domains to collaborate on the same data set, to engage in entirely new
forms of scientific research and to explore correlations between research
results.

The shift in the scientific process brought
about by e-science will increase research productivity and prompt new and
unexpected solutions to societal challenges. Furthermore, the
cross-fertilisation between publicly funded research and the commercial sector
in the ‘online European Research Area’ will increase the pace and impact of
innovation.

2.4.
Need to act at all levels: local, regional
national and EU level

Public data are produced at all levels of
government. The conditions under which the data are made available for
commercial or non-commercial re-use have an effect on competition and
competitiveness.

Many of the products and services based on
public sector information have a cross-border nature. You do not want your
mobile service to stop at the border, and Europe-wide business information services
with gaps for one or more countries will lose much of their interest. Moreover,
in order to benefit from the size of the internal market and to help SMEs grow beyond
their national borders, the deployment of services across the whole EU should
be facilitated.

Therefore, the same basic conditions should
apply across the European Union. This will create a level playing field and
stimulate a thriving market of innovative products and services based on public
data.

3.
Where do we stand and what has been achieved so far?
3.1.
Where do we stand?

The thrust towards open data is gaining
momentum in several Member States. They are embracing the concept for reasons
of transparency, administrative efficiency and the economic potential of re-use.
They are supporting open government through legislation and practical measures,
such as the production of data in machine-readable formats and the creation of
data portals.

The UK has set up the data.gov.uk portal, which brings together data
from government organisations at all levels. Other Member States are creating
similar portals, e.g. France with ETALAB. Data portals also exist at regional
level, such as dadesobertes.gencat.cat in Catalunya and dati.piemonte.it in
Piemonte, Italy.

Nevertheless, the degree of initiative and
the awareness of open data issues are uneven among the Member States. There is
a risk that Europe will miss out on the opportunities offered by open data, and
will lag behind other regions where open data policies are well established.

3.2.
What has been achieved at EU level?
3.2.1.
Legislative framework and policy initiatives

(1)
Directive on the re-use of public sector
information

The 2003 Directive on the re-use of public
sector information[7]
set out the general legislative framework at European level. The Directive
provides for a minimum degree of harmonisation. The 2009 review of the
Directive indicated that, in spite of progress since 2003, barriers to the
cross-border use of public sector information still existed. Some of these barriers can be tackled within the existing
legislation, others cannot.

(2)
Policy initiatives

The general re-use policy is complemented
by legislative or policy initiatives in specific sectors. Examples are:

·
the Access to Environmental Information and
INSPIRE Directives[8],
aimed at the widest possible dissemination of environmental information
and the harmonisation of key datasets;

·
the Commission Communication on Marine Knowledge
2020[9], aiming amongst other things to
make marine data easier and less costly to use;

·
the initiatives within the 2008 Action Plan[10] for the Deployment of
Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), looking at, amongst other things,
access for private service providers to travel and real-time traffic information;

·
the Commission’s policy on open access to scientific
information[11],
which includes a pilot for open access to publications resulting from projects
funded by the European Union and a pan-European, participatory e-Infrastructure
of Open Access Repositories; The JRC publications repository is also
relevant in this context.

·
the policies for the digitisation of cultural
heritage and the development of Europeana, Europe’s digital library,
archive and museum, aiming to ensure the widest possible use of digitised
cultural material and the related metadata.

The re-use of public sector data, whether
for commercial or non-commercial purposes, should fully respect European and
national privacy legislation. The objectives of fostering open
government data and protecting personal data can reinforce each other if based
on pro-active and conscious information management by the public sector.

Moreover, the implementation of open data
policies should fully respect the intellectual property rights of third
parties and the European Union’s obligations under international treaties on
intellectual property rights.

3.2.2.
Co-funding of R&D&I

The Commission has supported open data through
its funding programmes, in particular the Framework Programmes for Research and
Development, the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme, and the ISA
programme. The projects cover a range of research and application areas and
types of organisations.

The Linked Open Data (LOD2) project[12] started in
September 2010 and will run for 4 years. It addresses exploitation of the web
as a platform for data and information integration, and the use of semantic
technologies to make government data more useable.

The OpenAIRE project[13],
which started in December 2009 with partners from 25 EU countries and several
associated countries, aims to build a participatory infrastructure for the EC
Pilot for Open Access to Research Information.

The ISA Action on semantic interoperability (SEMIC.EU)[14] promotes the
idea of Open Government Metadata as a first step towards metadata alignment at
both national and European level.

3.2.3.
Practising what is preached

In 2006, the Commission put in place an
open re-use policy for its own information resources through the Decision on
the Re-use of Commission Information. It makes all generally accessible
Commission information available for commercial and non-commercial purposes.
Examples are Eurostat data and translation memories of EU institutions. The
information is normally available for free, or in exceptional cases in return
for the marginal costs of dissemination.

4.
Challenges and Opportunities
4.1.
New opportunities through technological progress

Several developments spur new opportunities
for the re-use of data — including public sector data — in new information
products and services.

First of all, the amount of data in
the world is exploding. The US Library of Congress collected 235 terabytes of
data in April 2011 alone[15].
Growth in global data generated per year is projected at 40 %.

Part of this growth comes from new types
of data. Already, more than 30 million networked sensor nodes can be found
in the transport, automotive, utility and other sectors[16].

In parallel, we are witnessing a revolution
in the technologies for analysing, exploiting and processing data, for
example on multilingual search and the automatic extraction of meaning from
networks of sensors.

4.2.
Challenges and remaining barriers

In recent years some progress has been made
to open up public data, but different barriers persist.

The legal framework

Despite the minimum harmonisation in 2003
through the Directive on the re-use of public-sector information, significant differences
in national rules and practices persist. This leads to fragmentation of the
internal information market and hinders the creation of cross-border
information services.

Differences are the clearest with respect
to charging, with cost recovery practised in some cases and re-use free or
practically free in others. An analysis of recent studies indicates that from a
macro-economic point of view the open data model leads to better overall results[17]. A series of case studies on
public sector bodies that moved from full cost recovery to a marginal costs
system show that the move not only increased re-use, but also benefited the
public sector bodies concerned[18].
Moreover the open data approach eliminates possible monopolistic tendencies
based on single-source data.

Awareness of public organisations and
businesses

Another key factor is the lack of
awareness among public organisations of the potential of open data. There
is still a widespread fear of losing control. Some of the concerns are
legitimate, such as privacy protection, national security and the need to
protect the intellectual property rights of third parties. Other arguments seem
to be rather excuses for inaction.[19]

Changing the mindset in administrations requires
strong political commitment at the highest level and a dynamic dialogue between
stakeholders, including administrations and public data holders, businesses and
the academic community. Pilot and test cases, the sharing of good practices,
and mobilisation campaigns (using for example open data competitions) can help
the public sector in adopting a culture of open data. This will also increase
business awareness of data availability and the opportunities it offers.

Practical
and technical hurdles

Finally, there are practical and
technical issues to be addressed. Language barriers and interoperability aspects
need to be tackled so that information resources from different organisations
and countries can be combined. The availability of the information in a machine-readable
format as well as a thin layer of commonly agreed metadata could facilitate
data cross-reference and interoperability and therefore considerably enhance
its value for re-use. And the technical infrastructure needs to be in place to
ensure the availability of information in the long term. In addition, more
support is needed for R&D and innovation in data analysis and visualisation
tools.

4.3.
Conclusion

Public data exploitation holds enormous
potential for the EU economy and consumer welfare. However, the existing
regulatory tools and their implementation, the lack of awareness of
administrations and businesses and the slow uptake of innovative technologies are
holding back the development of a true market for the re-use of public data and
do not allow the maximum benefits to be reaped from the new opportunities that
data and evolving technologies offer.

These considerations have led the
Commission to revise and strengthen its public data strategy by targeting the
legal framework for re-use and available support tools.

5.
Actions at European level: Revised strategy for
public open data

The Commission’s revised strategy is built
on three complementary strands:

·
Adapting the framework for data re-use,
including legal, soft law and policy measures,

·
Mobilising financing instruments by prioritising
open data in R&D&I and infrastructure programmes,

·
Facilitating coordination and experience sharing
across the Member States.

5.1.
A revised legislative framework conducive to openness
and re-use

This Communication is accompanied by a
proposal for revising the Directive on the re-use of public sector information,
by:

–
Introducing the principle that all public information that is not explicitly covered by one of the
exceptions is re-usable for commercial and
non-commercial purposes;

–
Setting the amount that can be charged for
public sector information at not more than the marginal costs of dissemination;
in exceptional cases, charging the full costs for producing and disseminating
the information remains possible.

–
Expanding the scope of the Directive to include
libraries, archives, museums and university libraries, though in a way that
limits the possible financial effects and does not impose a major
administrative burden on these institutions.

Also for other public sector bodies the
modifications in the Directive will entail at most a limited financial and
administrative burden that is by far outweighed by the expected benefits for
society as a whole.

At the same time, the Commission is updating
the rules on the re-use of its own information resources. The main changes
concern the inclusion of the research information produced by the Joint Research
Centre, measures to improve the implementation of the Decision, and a provision
on machine-readable formats. In 2012 the Commission will explore whether and
how similar rules could be taken up by the other EU institutions and key
European agencies.

In its forthcoming legislative and policy
initiatives in areas such as transport, environment, maritime policy and space policy,
the Commission will take full account of the opportunities offered by open data.
Where relevant, it will go beyond the minimum conditions set by the Directive
on the re-use of public sector information, to ensure the widest possible use
of data resources.

5.2.
Soft law for open research information

Because of the specificities of research
data, the Commission will set out in detail and in separate documents its
strategy for scientific and research data and associated
infrastructures. It intends to adopt in 2012 a Communication and Recommendation
on the accessibility and preservation of scientific information. It will work
with Member States to step up their activities to provide open access to
scientific information on the basis of a concrete set of measures. In parallel,
the Commission will detail how it will deal with the results
of research funded by the European Union..

5.3.
Financing and support measures: Stimulating
R&D&I in open data

The Commission will continue stimulating
activities to open up government data through its funding programmes. It will
use different instruments to stimulate the market, to test and promote the
development of innovative solutions, and to ensure the widest possible uptake
of open data.

(1)
Support for R&D&I

The Commission will continue to support R&D
in data-handling technologies, e.g. data mining, analytics or visualisation. In
the period 2011-2013 the Commission will spend around € 100 million on R&D
in these fields. Information management is also one of the priority areas envisaged
for ICT in Horizon 2020, which will cover EU support for research and
innovation in the period 2014-2020.

The Commission will support technology
innovation and uptake through pilot actions, testing and showcasing
innovative applications such as geographical information systems and location-based
services (GIS) and creative content applications in education, culture or
fashion. These will be supported under the CIP-ICT PSP in 2012-13 and further
support is envisaged under Horizon 2020.

In addition, the Commission will help
organise open data competitions to foster the development of new
information services,, and take initiatives to improve access to capital
for entrepreneurs who build new information services based on public sector
data.

(2)
Support for data infrastructures — data portals
for Europe

In order to facilitate the development of
information products and services combining data from across the European
Union, the Commission will work towards the creation of two interlinked European
data portals.

In 2012 it will start operating a portal
that will make the Commission’s own data resources and those of other European institutions
and agencies easily accessible and usable. In parallel, metadata definitions
with high re-use potential will be identified and promoted. Standard conditions
for use will aim to ensure the widest possible uptake of European data in
innovative information services, in line with the Commission Decision on the
re-use of Commission information.

The Commission will work together with
Member States, public sector bodies and regional aggregators to establish a
pan-European data portal that will start operating in 2013, and that will give direct
access to a range of datasets from across the EU (including the data available
through the Commission portal). Where possible, the work will build on existing
structures and developments, and the portal will gradually expand its content
to cover key datasets from all the Member States.

Support will be provided from the CIP
programme in the inception phase (2011-2013). In the period 2014-2020, funding
for the European e-service infrastructure for public data will come from the
Connecting Europe Facility[20].

The Commission will also continue to
support digitisation activities and the development of the Europeana platform,
which addresses an important aspect of data re-use.

(3)
Support for research data infrastructures

The Commission supports in FP7, and envisages
continued support in Horizon 2020 for the development of a persistent and
robust service infrastructure for scientific data in Europe that responds to
the needs of the data-intensive science and research of 2020, guided by the
recommendations of the ‘Riding the Wave’ report. It will allow access to and
interaction with a continuum of information, from raw observational and
experimental data to publications in all areas of science.

This infrastructure encompasses technical,
organisational and regulatory aspects that require extensive coordination with
Member States and also with third countries and international organisations to
ensure global interoperability and reciprocal access. The Commission will work
together with our international partners to develop standards for global data
access and interoperability.

5.4.
Coordinating measures at Member State and EU
level

The Commission will continue facilitating
coordination and experience sharing across the Member States, in particular
through:

·
The PSI group, a Member
States’ expert group for the exchange of good practices and initiatives
supporting public-sector information re-use,

·
The Public Sector Information platform. This web
portal provides news on European developments, good practices, examples of new
products and services, and legal cases concerning PSI re-use,

·
The LAPSI network, which
analyses legal issues related to public sector information and fosters debate
among researchers and stakeholders. It will produce a set of guidelines for
access and re-use policies and practices,

·
The ISA action on semantic interoperability.

The Commission will continue to support and
participate in policy advisory groups such as the e-Infrastructures Policy
Forum and the e-Infrastructures Reflection Group, important for coordination
between Member States on scientific data infrastructures.

6.
Conclusion

Information produced, collected or paid for
by public organisations across the European Union is a key resource in the
information economy. At the moment, its full potential is far from being
realised. In this Communication, the Commission proposes concrete steps to
unlock the potential of Europe's public sector resources, ranging from a review
of the Directive on the re-use of public sector information to the creation of
a pan-European portal.

Member States can contribute to making open
data a reality through the rapid adoption, transposition and implementation of
the revised Directive on the re-use of public sector information. This will
create the conditions for economic activity based on open data, and will
stimulate cross-border applications.

In addition, Member States should formulate
and implement open data policies, taking up good-practice examples from across
the EU. Support should for example be given to open data pilots and open data
competitions, in particular those targeting the development of cross-border
products and services.

Finally, the Commission calls on the Member
States to contribute to the development of the pan-European data portal. The
Commission will engage in discussions with experts from the Member States in
order to ensure that the portal has a solid foundation. During the deployment
phase, Member States will have to make a wide range of datasets available
through the portal to turn it into a successful service and a basis for
economic activity.

The Commission invites the European
Parliament and the Council, within their respective responsibilities, to create
the right framework conditions for the re-use of public sector information
across the European Union, and to support the projects and infrastructures that
can turn Europe’s public data into a motor for innovation, growth and
transparency.

Open data strategy, key measures

The legislative framework

·
Proposal for a revised Directive on the re-use
of public sector information, December 2011;

·
Revised Commission Decision on the re-use of
Commission information, December 2011; Work to expand the regime to other
European Institutions and Agencies, 2012;

·
Open data to be taken up in sector-based legislative
and policy initiatives.

·
Launch of a pan-European data portal, giving
access to datasets from across the EU, spring 2013, following preparatory work
with Member States from 2011;

·
Co-funding of the European e-service
infrastructure for open data through the Connecting Europe Facility 2014-2020.

Open data for science

·
Communication and Recommendation to the Member
States on scientific information, early 2012;

·
Expansion of the open access pilot for
scientific publications to the whole of Horizon 2020 + pilot with open access
to research data.

Research and innovation

·
Research and innovation projects relevant for
open data, in particular through FP7, CIP and Horizon 2020, with funding for research
infrastructures supporting open access to research articles and data;

·
Open data competitions (2012-2013) + improving
access to capital for entrepreneurs in this area.

Targets

The Commission is committed to:

·
the launch of a Commission open data portal in
2012.

·
the launch in 2013 of a pilot-portal with a multilingual
interface and search facilities, with datasets from across the EU.

The work with the Member States should lead to:

·
the formulation and implementation of open public
data policies in all Member States by early 2013.

·
1/3 of all available structured government data
in the Member States searchable through the pan-European data-portal by 2015.

Overall envisaged impact:

·
by 2017 (three years after the expected transposition
date of the Directive on the re-use of public sector information), the overall
gains of PSI re-use to reach € 100 bn per year in the EU, including
new business development and efficiency gains in public sector services.

[1] The concepts of 'data' and
'information' as used in this Communication are interchangeable and refer to
any content, whatever its medium.

[2] http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/cm76/7650/7650.pdf.

[3] Assessment of the Re-use of Public Sector Information
in the Geographical Information, Meteorological Information and Legal
Information sectors, MICUS, December 2008.